As Yellowknife inflation slowly eases, food prices keep climbing

The rate of inflation in Yellowknife is easing but the cost of food is an exception, continuing to rise at more than 10 percent a year.

More broadly, the cost of living in the city – as measured by the consumer price index – rose 6.3 percent between January 2021 and January 2022, the NWT Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday.

That represents a gradual slowing of Yellowknife’s annual inflation rate, which had reached 8.3 percent in June last year.

But food prices are bucking that trend.

“The year-over-year change in food prices remained elevated,” the bureau stated in a news release announcing the latest figures, giving a 12-month food inflation rate of 10.2 percent.

The bureau said the cost of grocery store vegetables has jumped almost 20 percent in the past year alone. Baked goods and cereals are up 16.6 percent, while fruit and nuts are up nearly 13 percent.

The cost of getting food from a restaurant in Yellowknife rose by 9.4 percent over the same period, the bureau found, the largest such increase since December 1991.

By contrast, the average price of meat, fish and seafood from Yellowknife grocery stores dropped by a small amount over the past 12 months.

Across Canada as a whole, year-on-year inflation for January was 5.9 percent.